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  <li><a href="#What_is_DAE_Tools" class="top">What is DAE Tools</a></li>
  <li><a href="#Licence">Licence</a></li>
  <li><a href="#History">History</a></li>
  <li><a href="#Acknowledgements">Acknowledgements</a></li>
  <li><a href="#Citation">How to cite</a></li>
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<div class="post"><!-- What Is DAETools   -->
<h1>What is DAE Tools?</h1>
<p>
<strong>DAE Tools</strong> is a collection of software tools for
modelling and simulation of real-world processes. Process
modelling and simulation can be defined as theoretical concepts and
computational methods that describe, represent in a mathematical form
and simulate the functioning of real-world processes. <strong
 style="font-weight: bold;">DAE Tools</strong> is initially developed
to model and simulate processes in chemical process industry (mass,
heat and momentum transfers, chemical reactions, separation processes,
thermodynamics). However, <strong>DAE Tools</strong> can help you
develop high-accuracy models of (in general) many different kind of
processes/phenomena, simulate them, visualize and analyse the results.
Its features should be sufficient to enable mathematical description of
chemical, physical or socio/economic phenomena. The most common are
initial value
problems of implicit form, which can be
formulated as systems of linear, non-linear, and partial differential
algebraic equations.<br>
</p>
<h2>The main features<br>
</h2>
<p><!-- <img src="stirthepot.gif"></img> --> <strong>DAE Tools</strong>
is a cross-platform equation-oriented process modelling system. All
core libraries
are written in standard ANSI/ISO c++. It is highly portable - it can
run on
every platform
with a decent c++ compiler, Boost and standard c++ libraries (by now it
is tested on 32/64 bit x86 and ARM GNU/Linux architectures making it
suitable for
use in embedded systems - an embedded <a
 href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_predictive_control">model
predictive control</a> is a mid-term objective). <strong>DAE Tools</strong>
core libraries are
small and fast, and each module can be easily extended.
Models can be easily developed in Python (<span
 style="font-weight: bold;">pyDAE</span> module) or c++ (<span
 style="font-weight: bold;">cDAE</span> module), compiled into an
independent executable and deployed without a need for any run time
libraries.<br>
</p>
<p>Various types of processes (lumped or distributed, steady-state or
dynamic) can be modelled. They may range from very simple
to those which require complex operating procedures. Equations can be
ordinary or
discontinuous, where discontinuities are automatically handled by the
framework. Model reports&nbsp; containing all information about a model
can be exported in XML+MathML
format automatically creating a high quality documentation. The
simulation results can be visualized, plotted and/or exported into
various
formats. <br>
</p>
<p>Currently <a
 href="https://computation.llnl.gov/casc/sundials/main.html">Sundials
IDA</a> differential algebraic equation solver is used to solve
underlying problems. <span style="font-weight: bold;">DAE Tools</span>
support direct dense and sparse matrix linear solvers (sequential and
multi-threaded versions) at the moment. In addition to the built-in
linear
solvers, several third party libraries are interfaced: <a
 href="http://software.intel.com/en-us/intel-mkl/">Intel MKL</a>, <a
 href="http://www.amd.com/acml">AMD ACML</a>, <a
 href="http://trilinos.sandia.gov/packages/amesos/">Trilinos Amesos</a>,
which
can
take
advantage
of
multi-core/cpu
computers
or
computer
clusters.
Linear
solvers
that
exploit
general-purpose
graphics
processing
units
(<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPGPU">GPGPU</a>,
such
as
<a href="http://www.amd.com/stream">ATI Stream</a>, and <a
 href="http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_home_new.html">NVidia CUDA</a>)
is
a
short-term
objective.<br>
</p>
<p> </p>
<!-- Licence   -->
<h1><a name="Licence"></a>Licence</h1>
<p>
<strong>DAE Tools</strong> is <strong><a href="http://www.gnu.org/">free
software</a></strong> published under the <a
 href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html#GPL">GNU General
Public Licence</a> version 3
or (at your option) higher (<a
 href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html" class="top">GNU
philosophy</a>).<br>
</p>
<!-- History   -->
<h1><a name="History"></a>History</h1>
<blockquote>
  <p><i>"Necessity, who is the mother of invention"</i></p>
  <p style="font-size: 0.5em;">Plato, The Republic, Greek philosopher,
~380 BC</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
  <p><i>"Every good work of software starts by scratching a developer's
personal itch"</i></p>
  <p style="font-size: 0.5em;">Eric S. Raymond, hacker, The Cathedral
and the Bazaar, 1997</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
The latter cannot be more true<a href="#Footnote1" class="top"><sup>[*]</sup></a>.
The
early
ideas
of
starting
a
project
like
this
go
back
into
2007.
At
that
time
I
have
been
working
on
my
PhD
thesis
using
one
of
commercially
available
process
modelling
software.
It
was
everything
nice
and
well
until
I
discovered
some annoying bugs and lack of certain highly
appreciated features. The developers of that proprietary program (as it
is a case with all proprietary computer programs) had their own agenda
fixing only what they wanted to fix and introducing new features that
only they anticipated.&nbsp; Although I was able to improve the
code and introduce certain features which will help (not only) me - I
was
helpless. The source code was
not available and nobody will ever consider giving it to me to create
patches with bugs fixes/new features.
Not even if I swear on the holy (c++) bible!! Very soon the
contours of the new process modelling software slowly began to form. It
took
me a
while until I made a definite plan and initial features, and I
had to abandon a couple of initial versions...
</p>
<blockquote>
  <p><i>"Plan to throw one away; you will, anyhow"</i></p>
  <p style="font-size: 0.8em;">Eric S. Raymond, hacker, The Cathedral
and the Bazaar, 1997</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
Damn you Eric Raymond, interfering with my business again <img
 src="images/smile.gif">. The new project was officially born early
next year - 2008.
</p>
<br>
<p style="font-size: 0.8em;"><i>[*] However, I do not agree with Eric
Raymond and the Open Source Iniative views - they miss the point IMO</i><i>,
but
let
us
leave
it
beside
at
the
moment.<br>
</i></p>
<!-- Citation   -->
<h1><a name="Acknowledgements"></a>Acknowledgements</h1>
<p>DAE Tools use the following third party free software libraries
(mostly
GNU GPL or some other permissive licences):<br>
</p>
<ul>
  <li>Sundials IDA DAE solver: <a
 href="https://computation.llnl.gov/casc/sundials/main.html">https://computation.llnl.gov/casc/sundials/main.html</a><a
 href="https://computation.llnl.gov/casc/sundials/main.html"><br>
    </a></li>
  <li>Boost libraries: <a href="http://www.boost.org">http://www.boost.org</a><br>
  </li>
  <li>ADOL-C: <a href="https://projects.coin-or.org/ADOL-C">https://projects.coin-or.org/ADOL-C</a><br>
  </li>
  <li>Qt and pyQt4: <a href="http://qt.nokia.com">http://qt.nokia.com</a>,


    <a href="http://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk/software/pyqt/intro">http://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk/software/pyqt/intro</a><br>
  </li>
  <li>Numpy: <a href="http://numpy.scipy.org">http://numpy.scipy.org</a><br>
  </li>
  <li>Trilinos Amesos linear solver: <a
 href="http://trilinos.sandia.gov/packages/amesos/">http://trilinos.sandia.gov/packages/amesos</a><br>
  </li>
  <li>SuperLU linear solver: <a
 href="http://crd.lbl.gov/%7Exiaoye/SuperLU/index.html">http://crd.lbl.gov/~xiaoye/SuperLU/index.html</a><br>
  </li>
  <li>Umfpack linear solver: <a
 href="http://www.cise.ufl.edu/research/sparse/umfpack">http://www.cise.ufl.edu/research/sparse/umfpack</a><br>
  </li>
</ul>
<p>DAE Tools use the following proprietary software libraries:
</p>
<ul>
  <li>AMD ACML linear solver (pyAmdACML module): <a
 href="http://www.amd.com/acml">http://www.amd.com/acml</a></li>
  <li>Intel MKL linear solvers (pyIntelMKL and pyIntelPardiso modules):
    <br>
    <a href="http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-mkl">http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-mkl</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Please see the corresponding websites for more details about the
licences.</p>
<h1><a name="Citation"></a>How to cite</h1>
<p>
If you use <strong>DAE Tools</strong> in your work then please cite it
in the following way: <strong><i> D. Nikolic, DAE Tools process
modelling software, 2010. http://www.daetools.com </i></strong>
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